A great day: Letters, 8 February

The Bay of Plenty Times welcomes letters and comments from readers. Here you can read the letters we have published in your newspaper today.

Inaugural SummerFest a great day

SummerFest 2012 was a blast.

Great entertainment. I especially loved mermaid girl Alice Foote. Midnight Youth rocked. I also saw some bored St John people and a couple of cops with nothing to do ... oh that's right, it was alcohol free.

Big ups to Pip, Tracey and the team at Creative Tauranga, Tauranga Roundtable, and everyone else who participated.

Not sure how you did if for such affordable ticket prices, but bring on SummerFest 2013.

Michael Mills, Tauranga

Safe City co-ordinator

Results matterIn reference to your article "Science v 'Quack Potions"', I do not use homeopathy and it is rare that I have had the need for any pharmaceutical medicine either.

However if I chose to try a homeopathic product and found it a success, I would not give a darn that it was not scientifically proven. Why should I? It's the result that matters.

Ian Lucas, Brookfield

Shock tactics

Your article on homeopathy quoted Tauranga homeopath Clive Stuart as saying that "a homeopathic remedy generated an electro-magnetic charge when the mixture was shaken and diluted. The charge is amplified at each step of the dilution process".

If this is correct then there should be a considerable - and measurable - charge on each bottle of a high dilution homeopathic "remedy". Strange that no one has ever complained of getting a shock from this charge on handling a bottle.

Is Mr Stuart able to provide actual data that such a charge exists? It would be easy enough to do. In the absence of such evidence I'm afraid I will continue to doubt claims about the efficacy of homeopathy.

Alison Campbell, Hamilton

Time will tell

It comes as no surprise to many people that both Europe and North America are in the grip of a very severe winter. There is no doubt that climate change is taking place. While many scientists claim that the globe is warming, this opinion is open to serious challenge.

Historically, our world has been subject to cyclical ice ages, and by that I mean being encased with ice to a depth of about 2km or more.

A graph of global temperatures over hundreds of thousands of years will show that the present interglacial term is overdue for return to a further ice age. I am referring to the fact that ice ages normally last for about 100 million years, with an interglacial period of about 10 million years.

It is ironic that in the 1980s scientists were predicting a normal cycle of falling temperatures and a fear of an approaching ice age. They were right. In fact the present interglacial warming is much longer than the norm.

I wonder if in the next interglacial warming period in about 100,000 years what our successors will make of our feeble efforts to prevent the march of time? I doubt it as a normal interglacial warming of 10,000 years will not be long enough to allow progress to our present level.

Charles Purcell, Ocean Shores

Opposite camps

The letter to the editor on council decisions (Opinion, February 3) was factually incorrect, mayor Stuart Crosby and myself being in opposite camps.

Mr Crosby and former chief executive Steven Town had delegated authority in regard to the BOP Speedway Association lease relinquish to the council, and the purchase of Bob Clarkson's improvements on the council-owned land at Baypark for $12 million.

At the time of negotiations (2006 and 2007) I was a financial member of the Bay of Plenty Speedway Association and opposed the agreement put to the club by Bob Clarkson and the council. I declared a "conflict of interest" to the council.

My position would remain the same today. The deal proceeding, I now seek to ensure the best outcomes for our community are achieved, maximum value and the least ratepayer cost. I did support the council's choice of Baypark as the preferred site for a new sports and event centre.

Murray Guy, Tauranga

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